Doll Fashion Studio Part 2

Hello again all. By now I hope you’ve had a chance to get a copy of Joan Hind’s new book Doll FashionStudio. As I mentioned last week, I’ve decided to make an heirloom version of the “Sunny Day Dress” on page 88. For my materials, I chose some colored lace edging I’ve had forever; because I didn’t have an insertion to match, I just never could figure out what to do with it. It matches a cut of an Anna Griffin Francesca Collection cotton I had in my stash. I also grabbed a scrap of cream-colored cotton to machine embroider on one of my bodice pieces (photo 1). I picked thread to match the lace, two little buttons instead of a Velcro closure, iron-away stabilizer, a tracing marker and glass head pins. This week I made the lace yoke piece, which will be the left side of the top.

1.  First off, I traced my top piece (pattern piece 77) on iron-away stabilizer.

Photo 1

2.  Taking my lace, I pulled the header thread (photo 2), pressed and starched it until I achieved the same curve as the center front curve on the pattern piece (photo 3). Note: Do not press the lace on the stabilizer as heat will melt it.

Photo 2

Photo 3

3.  I placed my curved lace to my traced pattern piece aligning the edging to the pattern curve. (Because the dress in the book has a rickrack edge that extends past the finished edge, I placed my lace right up to the edge of the pattern rather than along the seamline.

4.  I took my lace/stabilizer piece to the machine and stitched along the header edge (photo 4).

Photo 4

5.  I repeated steps 2 through 4 four more times, pinning and overlapping the decorative edge of my lace about ½ inch over the header of the previous piece (photo 5).

Photo 5

6.  Once my entire traced piece was covered, I stitched down the decorative edge of my lace using a 2.0 stitch length and following the outline of the lace design (photo 6).

Photo 6

7.  I retraced my pattern piece onto my lace block (photo 7), again aligning the front curve of the pattern to the curve of my lace and zigzagged along the pattern line using a 1.0 width and a 2.0 length.

Photo 7

8.  I then cut out my lace front piece just outside the zigzagged lines and pressed away the stabilizer on back (photo 8).

Photo 8

Next, we’ll machine embroider the other side of our dress top.